[llvm-dev] Supporting sub commands in LLVM command line tools

[Robinson, Paul via llvm-dev]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: llvm-dev [mailto:llvm-dev-bounces at lists.llvm.org] On Behalf Of
> Renato Golin via llvm-dev
> Sent: Saturday, June 18, 2016 4:02 AM
> To: Mehdi Amini
> Cc: llvm-dev
> Subject: Re: [llvm-dev] Supporting sub commands in LLVM command line tools
> 
> On 18 June 2016 at 02:58, Mehdi Amini via llvm-dev
> <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
> > I haven't looked at the implementation, but conceptually this looks
> nice!
> 
> Indeed, really nice!
> 
> 
> > We talked internally about an option to build something like a single
> "llvm"
> > binary that would be symlinked by opt/llc/etc. So that when you invoke
> > `opt`, it would run the same binary but internally the right subcommand
> set
> > of options would be used. The downside is that running `ninja llvm-mc`
> would
> > depends on every LLVM libraries though.
> 
> I think this would muddle things, but it would also help merge all
> command line options (ex. -mtriple vs. -triple vs -target).

We get some of that with include/llvm/CodeGen/CommandFlags.h, which
mostly has flags to package up TargetOptions but also a few other
common things.  But getting more consistency across the tools, with
or without commonizing the tool itself, seems like it could only be
a good thing.
--paulr

> 
> The only way I know we could solve the dependency, though, is if there
> was a binary called "llvm-mc" from "llvm-mc.cpp" which provided its
> own view of the "llvm-mc" functionality (ie. just a shell), and "llvm"
> would be also just a shell to all of them together.
> 
> So, "ninja llvm" would build all tools, while "ninja llvm-mc" would
> only build one of them. Now, how do you then transform from a binary
> called "llvm-mc" to a symlink to "llvm", it'd probably happen at
> install time if you choose to install "developer tools", which I find
> quite useful from say, an "llvm-dev" package.
> 
> 
> > This is a bit orthogonal to what you’re doing, but I assume your patch
> would
> > help to build such an option right?
> 
> Unless you're proposing to move from "llvm-mv" to "llvm mc", I don't
> see how this could...
> 
> cheers,
> --renato
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